In 1982 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcast a series of five television plays by Alan Bleasdale. Titled Boys from the Blackstuff, the series proved to be one of the most critically acclaimed of all British television dramas. Its impact was immediate and profound. Joan Bakewell described the series as the greatest achievement of BBC Two, Jonathan Miller equated it with James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) as a major twentieth-century work of art, and John McGrath spoke for many when he said: "With Boys from the Blackstuff, television drama finally came of age. In its five plays, the realities of being alive in our time are recorded in images that are stronger, more accurate, more memorable and surely longer-lasting than any images so far produced in poetry, novel, cinema or theatre."

The series, which won several awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, certainly emblazoned Bleasdale's name on...